"The story certainly is rather tragic than comic," said Oswald; "and have they never found any trace of the mother or her child?"
"Never! and yet they publish every year--it is a terrible disgrace, and I pity the poor baroness with all my heart--an advertisement in all the papers of the province, inviting the lost one to come forward and claim her rights."
"How long has that being going on?"
"Some twenty years or more."
"Then it is hardly probable that the poor woman is still alive?"
"Certainly not; and nobody thinks of it," laughed the minister. "They would make a pretty face at Grenwitz, if all of a sudden a young vagabond should present himself there, claiming to be the most obedient nephew of the baron, and demand the two farms, with the interest for twenty years! It would not suit the baroness, I can tell you; for she has not a farthing of her own, and, as the whole estate is entailed, she and her daughter would, after the baron's death, be as poor as she was before she married."
"You seem to be a great advocate of entails?"
"Certainly, I am. I consider it fortunate that such large estates cannot be parcelled away by subdivision, and that thus an aristocracy of wealthy landowners is formed, which serves as a kind of ballast for the ship of state in times of peril--which God, I pray, may long avert from our beloved land."
"Well," said Oswald, "there are two sides to that question, as to most questions."
"Of course, I know," said the obliging minister. "But I, for my part, I have too long enjoyed the honor and the happiness of being intimate with wealthy families, noble in the true sense of the word, not to be a warm adherent of the aristocracy of the land. Besides which, I have had too many sad experiences of the fatal effect which large property often has upon the minds of plebeians, to use the historic expression; I mean the vanity, pride, and worldliness which it begets."